Mako Island did not like what had been done.
The first sign was the tide.
It pulled wrong—too fast, too high—dragging water up the black stone paths and slamming it back down again like the island was breathing out of rhythm. The Moon Pool churned, its once-glass surface fractured into spirals of light and shadow.
Zanya felt it in her bones.
The snapped seal had not freed the Dragon.
It had woken the systems designed to keep him buried.
Rocks groaned deep underground. The jungle shuddered. The moonlight itself bent strangely, stretching and compressing as if caught in a gravitational eddy.
"Oh no," Zanya whispered. "Easy—easy—"
The pressure in her chest spiked. The Dragon's presence surged, unfocused and hurting, aching. The broken seal bled resonance into the water, raw and uncontrolled.
She didn't hesitate.
She surfaced at the Moon Pool's edge just as three familiar figures emerged from the tunnel path.
Emma, Cleo, and Rikki didn't need explanation.
They felt it.
"The tide's going haywire," Emma said, already stepping into the water.
"It's not lunar drift," Cleo added, eyes scanning the surface. "It's feedback."
Rikki cracked her knuckles. "So we stop it."
Zanya's throat tightened.
"Thank you," she said simply.
They spread out instinctively—three points of balance, stabilizing the moon tide the way they'd learned over years of trial and error.
Emma cooled the surge, smoothing the erratic rise. Cleo dampened the oscillation, anchoring the pool's surface. Rikki burned off the excess pressure with sharp, controlled bursts of kinetic heat.
The water calmed. It held for now.
Zanya slipped beneath the surface again, deeper this time, tail cutting clean through the glow. The Dragon's pain pulsed through her Saltborn resonance—heavy, disoriented, threaded with exhaustion so old it felt like sediment.
"I hear you," she murmured.
This wasn't something force could fix.
So she sang.
Not the Song of Calm she'd been given before—but something new.
She shaped it carefully, drawing on Tolkien song-magic not as a spell, but as structure. A sea-song meant for healing, built of low harmonics and long, steady phrasing—notes that wrapped instead of cut.
The water listened.
The current slowed.
Her voice carried through the deep, weaving between chains she could feel but not yet touch. Where the seal had snapped jagged, the song smoothed the edges. Where pain echoed, it softened into something bearable.
The Dragon's presence stilled.
And then—he spoke.
"You are my Saltborn," he said, voice heavy with truth. "My other half."
The words landed like a tide settling into its rightful basin.
Zanya's breath shook—but she didn't recoil.
"I'm here," she answered. "And I'm not leaving you like this."
The pain ebbed further, contained now, the island's fury easing into wary silence.
Above her, the Moon Pool glimmered.
The System flickered quietly—with a projection.
An image.
An Infinity Nikki outfit previewed softly at the edge of her vision:
[Lunar Bride— pale silver and deep blue, woven with moon-thread and sea-light, regal rather than delicate. Not available yet.]
[Future Unlock — Condition Unmet]
Foreshadowing.
Zanya looked back into the deep, heart steady despite the weight of what she'd just accepted.
"Rest," she told him gently. "I'll handle the island."
Far below, the Dragon withdrew trusting his chosen.
Mako settled into uneasy quiet, the moon tide stabilized between four anchors—three mermaids and one Saltborn at the center of something far older than any of them.
And for the first time since the seal broke, the ocean did not scream.
It listened.